


The Young Prince of Tyvia

by Mertiya



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anton does not know how he got a boyfriend, Blow Jobs, But he likes it quite a lot, Demisexuality, Established Relationship, Fluff and Smut, M/M, Science Boyfriends, Sleeping Together, Sleepy Cuddles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-21 23:44:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10685352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertiya/pseuds/Mertiya
Summary: Piero pulled one of the stools out from beneath the workbench and sat down on it, setting a book in his lap and looked expectantly at Anton.  There was a subtle gleam in his eyes that Anton wasn’t entirely sure he liked the look of.  He cleared his throat again.  “Scene,” he read out loud, “a lady’s antechamber. Enter Prince Kallisarr and Annalise Bayle.”





	The Young Prince of Tyvia

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Natural Philosopher and the Nonlinear Terms](https://archiveofourown.org/works/870534) by [Rastaban](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rastaban/pseuds/Rastaban). 



> Much credit and blame must, as usual, be ascribed to Rastaban. Incidentally, I have now actually managed to play through at least a large CHUNK of the game in question but I'm stuck on the damn Flooded District.

             Anton scowled down at the jars of colors in front of him. What he had hoped would prove to be serviceable substitutes for the paints lost during the events of the previous few weeks had, instead, turned out as muddy grey, muddy grey, and muddy brown, respectively. Wearily, he began to gather up the powders he had spent so much time grinding, distilling, and carefully mixing. He would have to try a new tack. Doubtless, at some point, Dunwall’s trade would recover; it would become possible to obtain “luxury” items once again. And surely he would be able to mix some kind of suitable paint by then. It was absurd to think that he, Anton Sokolov, was being defeated by a simple mixture of ingredients of less than the finest quality.

            The clearing of a throat behind the workbench drew his attention, and he looked up to see Piero Joplin standing in the center of the laboratory. As always, he looked uneasy in his own skin, as if it were an ill-fitting suit that rubbed him in uncomfortable places. “It is past two in the morning,” he told Anton.

            “That’s nice. There’s a clock on the worktable.” Anton pointed, vaguely wondering if Piero had forgotten about it.

            “I don’t think you slept last night,” Piero continued, his soft, precise voice sounding as if it contained some hidden meaning. “Or the night before, actually.”

            “Fascinating.” Anton eyed the powdered krust shell, wondering if only his proportions had been wrong or if it simply wasn’t possible to get anything vaguely bluish-looking out of the ingredients he had at hand. He was loathe to give up on the whole theory, but it might become necessary to start from scratch.

            “And I th-think you should probably get some rest.”

            “Oh, go work on your own project, man,” Anton responded irritably. As if Piero hadn’t stayed up night after night working on that—he paused, a yawn creeping up on him—that, well, whatever that last project had been. He couldn’t call it to mind right now, but that had nothing to do with exhaustion and everything to do with the fact that Piero’s last project simply hadn’t been that interesting.

            “I have reached a lull,” Piero announced firmly. “Your mind will certainly work better if you allow it the occasional rest. I have taken some notes on your productivity versus your sleeping tendencies and—”

            “Outsider’s balls, man, go _away_ ,” Anton snapped, then regretted it. Piero could get sulky—or worse, deeply hurt—when he was too outspoken with him, and he had enough, well, _affection_ for the man to curb his more acerbic tendencies most of the time. Perhaps he _was_ a little tired.

            Piero, however, did not seem perturbed. “If you will not rest, then I will simply have to aid your concentration,” he said mildly. “I have determined that a companionable voice has the potential to be helpful as a focusing device.”

            “What?” Anton blinked at him.

            Piero pulled one of the stools out from beneath the workbench and sat down on it, setting a book in his lap and looked expectantly at Anton. There was a subtle gleam in his eyes that Anton wasn’t entirely sure he liked the look of. He cleared his throat again. “Scene,” he read out loud, “a lady’s antechamber. Enter Prince Kallisarr and Annalise Bayle.”

            Anton, who had begun to bend over his pigments again, choked on his own saliva. “You _wouldn’t_ ,” he said, hoarsely. “The goddamn number of times I’ve had to—”

            “What?” And Piero sounded so honestly, truly confused that Anton had to narrow his eyes at him before he detected, once again, that sudden gleam in the depths of Piero’s gaze. “I simply felt you would like to hear a story about your countrymen, Anton.”

            “You’re telling me that if I don’t go to bed, you’re going to sit there and read that _out loud_ while I work? You do know that other people occasionally enter the workshop, don’t you?”

            Piero met his gaze challengingly. “Other people have assumed that we’ve been f-fucking for months,” he pointed out. Couldn’t even get the damn word out, but he was on the nose. If anyone walked in and heard Piero reading that—shit—they’d assume it was foreplay. Foreplay that Anton had _asked_ for. He’d never live it down. Groaning, he put down the flask he had just picked up. “Fine, damn you,” he snarled. “I’ll come to bed.”

            “Are you certain? I have yet to read the novel in its entirety, and I am told it is quite entert—”

            “By the Void, Piero.” Anton slammed the jar he had been holding into the worktable with a little too much force. Sediment slopped across his hands. “I am coming to _bed_.”

            “Good.” Piero shut that damn book with a snap and held out a hand. “I cleaned off the bed; there should be room for both of us now.”

            He had done his best, Anton saw, drawing the covers up and shifting several day’s worth of tomes to the ground and the table beside. There was a long bolster that Anton didn’t remember lying squashed against the wall. “Taking my place with a sack of chicken feathers?” he asked in amusement as he reached out to shift it.

            “I—I—” The sudden nervousness in Piero’s voice was more than he had expected from that simple crack. “That is—if I wake alone, it is still—difficult, sometimes.”

            Anton felt a soft little pain nudge at his heart. “I didn’t realize,” he murmured.

            “Well,” Piero responded with a tired little sigh, as he reached for the vial of brightly-colored tonic that he took nightly, “it is not so important, after all. A moment or two of disorientation.”

            Again that little shock of something like agony. Anton was not _good_ at this. He did not know how to do this— _this_ —whatever this _this_ with Piero was, but he knew, somehow, that he did not want this to become Piero’s normal. Piero saved him from nightmares, most nights, when he did sleep, and he could not do the same for Piero, but he could give him safety and surety when he woke. “Fuck me,” he muttered. “Petja, tell me when you want to rise, even if I haven’t slept the night before, I’ll be there.”

            Piero’s pale eyes blinked, turning towards him with something like blank incomprehension. “Petja?” he repeated, and Anton blinked back.

            “Oh,” he said, almost wondering that the word had left his mouth. “Ah—yes. A term of endearment.” He sighed heavily. “Tyvian in origin, if you must know.”

            Piero’s lip twitched, but he did not say anything, for which Anton was grateful, electing instead to simply sigh, move the bolster, and lie down on the bed, huddled towards the wall. Anton followed him with a groan. He had to admit, the bed beneath him was remarkably soft. Maybe he did need the rest. “Get over here,” he mumbled to Piero, who seemed to be trying to push himself against the wall and take up less space—which was a fucking stupid thing for him to be doing—and Piero did, curling into his arms. Anton rolled onto his side and tucked his knees behind Piero’s, then, with a sleepy grin, pressed his lips into the back of Piero’s neck. Piero made a muffled noise, then reached up and clumsily squeezed Anton’s hand in his. The soft touch was almost the last thing Anton felt before darkness closed above his head, and he sank into a sleep utterly devoid of dreams.

~

            The pigments finally started behaving several days later, although the blue was still unfortunately not of the best texture, rather lumpy and runny in bits, but at least he could probably do some painting once again. Which was fortunate, because there was a new cause for vexation. And that was that damn book.

            Ever since Piero had threatened to read it out loud, it had started turning up everywhere. First balanced precariously on top of one of his bull rat fetuses, then face up on the desk with a pot of medicinal herbs and some Tyvian ore holding it open, then, most perplexing of all, neatly tucked onto the table beside the soldering iron. So when, a week later, he unexpectedly popped back into the bedroom to find _that damn book_ open on the pillow and Piero reading it with one hand down his pants, Anton was out of patience.

            “Must you,” he growled, slapping the book off of the pillow so that it landed on the ground with a thud. “Isn’t it bad enough that every time I’ve bedded somebody for the last twenty years they’ve giggled and made some coy reference to it? I’ve never even read the Void-cursed thing, and I still know _every line_. So, if you really find it necessary to jerk yourself to it, could you at least have the fucking decency to lock the door?”

            Piero had rolled off his side into a sitting position when Anton entered. Trousers still undone, he was staring a little blankly at something about Anton’s left ear, both hands now working loosely at his sides. “I,” he said, drawing in his breath for some half-formed excuse, then blowing it out again. “I. Yes.”

            “Well, good,” Anton said stiffly, the anger abruptly draining out of him at Piero’s easy capitulation. “And maybe you could stop leaving it lying around everywhere as well?”

            “Oh. Yes. Y-Yes, of course.” One hand wormed its way up to Piero’s mouth, and he began to chew gently on his thumbnail. Anton had the sense that there was something in the conversation that he was missing, or possibly something that Piero was missing. Maybe both. It occurred to him that whole situation was more than unusual.

            “You’re not usually one for self-fuckery, are you?” he asked. Piero flinched at the frank analysis, but then he often did flinch at Anton’s cavalier disregard for euphemism.

            “N-No. It is unusual.”

            Anton sat himself down on the side of the bed beside Piero and raised an eyebrow. “Then why this dross?” he questioned. “If you need more stimulating material, I’d be happy to suggest a dozen works—”

            “No—,” Piero’s hand shot up to Anton’s shoulder, then he paused. “Well. P-Perhaps? But I did have a reason for it, although it may seem somewhat…” he paused again, as if searching for the word, then raised and lowered his shoulder in a shrugging motion.

            Anton sighed. “Tell me, then.” Piero’s reason was probably at least a modicum more interesting than the reasoning of previous lovers, which was generally poorly-disguised lust for the exotic mixed with the desire for the forbidden, both of which Anton found frankly rather irksome. One more reason to keep the company of whores; they had a job to do, and they did it, rather better than most of the other men and women he’d had occasion to take to bed. Significantly better than Piero, of course, but then his current lover brought something else to the table, something entirely new that Anton prized far more than he prized a skillful fuck.

            But along with that, he brought significant difficulties that Anton felt ill-equipped to deal with. He had a brief, sudden moment of clarity, almost an echo of a young Jessamine’s voice whispering, _Sokolov’s gone and done it now. The old bastard’s finally fallen in love_.

            Piero, not privy to Anton’s inner monologue, drew in his breath and began to speak, slowly, faltering a bit. “You…may have heard that I used to spy on the maids in their baths,” he squeezed out to begin with. “I—did—it was not—I knew that it was not— _all right_ , but I d-did it anyway, only n-not for the reason I suppose m-most people think. I w-wanted to find out if there was something that could—consistently—trigger the urge that s-so many men s-seem to have so often. And this book, well, I must confess that I had read it once before and it did nothing for me then, I did not understand why it was so sought-after—” Piero’s words were tumbling over themselves in their rush to escape. “—b-but now it, I, I can imagine y-y-you in the place of K-Kallisar, and I, I, I _do_ understand,” he finished miserably.

            And there it was. Not _you Tyvian scoundrel, you must be just like Kallisar_ but the rather more intensely flattering _I never found Kallisar compelling until after I met you_. As clumsy a confession of affection as he had ever heard, it was still utterly heartwarming, and so utterly Petja.

            Leaning sideways against Piero, Anton tipped his chin up and pressed their lips together. “Well, as I said, I know every damn line in the play, so if there’s anything you’re dying to try with a _real_ Tyvian…”

            “I—” Piero flushed. “Well, I admit that I am curious about the descriptions of acts that we have not yet performed.”

            “Such as?”

            “The—insertion of—” Piero waved his hands expressively. “—er, objects and appendages into orifices?”

            “Care should be taken,” Anton said feelingly, remembering a particularly unpleasant evening early in his career. “But with sufficient lubrication, it’s pleasurable, yes.”

            “I would like to try it,” Piero said firmly. “If you have the appropriate lubrication?”

            Anton’s neck heated, and his prick suddenly became very interested in the proceedings. “If you’ll give me a minute, I imagine I can find something,” he growled, sudden desire driving his voice low.

            Piero sat on the edge of the bed and waited for him as he rose. There hadn’t been much occasion to use such things in tandem, but Anton did tend to supplement their still relatively infrequent couplings with masturbation, and he rather enjoyed the sensation of something inside him, so it took him only a few minutes to track down the spot where he had tucked the little glass jar, full of cloudy liquid.

            Seating himself on the side of the bed again, he patted the pillow. “Pants off, face down will be easiest,” he told Piero. “You’ve cleaned yourself, haven’t you? Things can get messy otherwise, and I don’t enjoy cleaning up shit.”

            Piero went a sort of mottled white and red color, his breathing choking up as he made a strangled kind of noise. After a minute or two, he managed a nod and began slowly undoing his trousers. Kicking them off awkwardly, he slid up the bed into approximately the position Anton had described. He was, as he’d implied, hard already, and he blinked up at Anton over his shoulder, myopic and also, as Anton discovered when he scooted closer, trembling slightly.

            Putting a large hand on his waist, Anton waited, hoping that would be enough. It was. After a few moments, Piero gave a soft sigh, and the trembling abated. Frowning, Anton coated his fingers with about twice the amount of lubrication he would have used on himself and gently probed at Piero’s hole with a single finger. The natural philosopher hissed, instinctively tensing, and Anton let his hand go still.

            A slightly miserable, “I’m sorry,” floated up the bed.

            “Why? I like a challenge.” Anton grinned to himself and kissed Piero’s thin, pale thigh, sliding one hand loosely around the other man’s erection. A soft noise; the tension bled out of Piero again as easily as it had built. Anton kept his hand in place without moving it and probed again with his other hand. This time, he was able to slip a finger inside, but he paused, working Piero’s prick in his other hand with a few swift strokes.

            “ _Ah_ —oh—”

            He nipped at Piero’s backside. “Better?”

            A soft, pleased whine. “Feels odd,” Piero panted. “But not bad.”

            Slowly, Anton slid his finger out and back in, felt Piero twitch beneath his hand. Once more, then he crooked his finger, and Piero gave another sudden moan. “Wh-What—?” he gasped, and Anton grinned.

            “Good?”

            Frantic nodding. Slowly, carefully, Anton began to set up a rhythm, moving his finger slowly in and out as he stroked Piero’s shaft, long, lazy strokes. After a few iterations of this, Piero was moaning and trying to thrust into his hand. A few more, and Piero was shuddering and coming across his hand. His stamina rarely allowed for more than a few minutes of sex, and his interest in carnal pleasures was decidedly uneven, but watching him now, shaking, undone, in Anton’s arms—somehow that was worth more than hours with a more skillful lover. And, of course, it was not as if Piero left Anton wanting, even when he desired no such thing himself. Even now, he was turning, watery eyes blinking behind his spectacles.

            “Do—you want to insert your—ah—I mean, if you can use a finger—and you are still aroused—”

            Anton almost came there and then, the spike of desire that shot through him so sudden and forceful. “I think not today,” he managed to say after a long moment. “Such an experiment—I’d feel better if there were more preparation first.”

            Piero sighed. “Oh, well, I suppose you know best. My mouth then?”

            “ _Bozjemoi_ , Piero, _please_ ,” Anton groaned, as he sat back on the bed and desperately yanked his trousers down. A wide smile spread across Piero’s face as he knelt between Anton’s legs.

            “I do like it when you sound eager,” he admitted, turning his face to the side to kiss Anton’s thigh. The touch of his lips sent another surge of heat spiking through Anton, and his hips twitched upward. Piero paid no attention, continuing to drag his lips slowly across the area so damn close and yet so damn far from where Anton wanted him to be.

            “ _Petja_ ,” Anton whined, as his lover switched sides, a momentary puff of moist breath the only sensation that reached his twitching member. “This is _cruel_. I did not believe you were a cruel man.”

            “But you make such interesting faces. How else am I to study them?”

            “But I believe it now.”

            A huffing laugh from Piero, warm breath ghosting once again across Anton’s naked lap. “Oh, very well,” he said, in the sort of tone that suggested he was humoring Anton, and he bent and took the Royal Physician in his mouth.

            The sensation drew all of Anton’s focus down to the source of it, drawing him in like water swirling to a single point in a drain. The heat, the up-and-down motion of Piero’s mouth—he had improved drastically at this particular skill since his first time employing it—the weight of his hands on Anton’s thighs: all these described in rough outline the new contours of Anton’s world.

            He could paint this, he realized suddenly—Piero’s head between his legs—his own head knocking against the wall behind the bed. His first impulse, dark shades of red to match the tone of their flushed and shaking bodies, he dismissed, but he could not quite grasp the shape of the thing he wanted until Piero repositioned himself so that he was looking up at him, smiling lopsidedly around the erection in his mouth, his pale eyes made paler by the reflection on his spectacles. No, nothing bright or harsh, Anton’s mind supplied, just pastels, a pastel image, but with the colors slowly fading in, black and white at the edge of the frame, colors in the center, yes, that would do it, yes, _yes_ —

            “ _Ah_ —” White and colors ran together with the heat; Piero’s hand on his thigh felt like an indelible imprint. And he was curled forward over Piero, hand on the other man’s hair, trembling, as Piero sucked and swallowed and then murmured words that Anton couldn’t make out.

            Piero kissed Anton’s thighs again, and then scrambled gracelessly up onto the bed beside him. “Do you still hate it?” he asked, indicating the book on the floor. Anton glared at him, feeling the solid weight of post-coital drowsiness settling onto his shoulders.

            “It is still not my closest friend, but I may be slightly less inclined to set it on fire now,” he conceded finally.

            “That is probably the best I could have hoped for,” Piero said, lying down with a yawn. He patted the pillow beside him. “Will you sleep with me?”

            Anton stretched, yawned, and lay down as well. “As long as you promise that you will lend me your ear tomorrow; I have been trying to refine my equations of current to account for different kinds of impurities in the oil, and I think I may be missing something obvious.”

            “It is a bargain,” Piero murmured, putting a scrawny arm about Anton’s chest. “Always—interesting work—never thought it could be so…stimulating…” His voice trailed off into a gentle snore.

            Anton could not help the smile that rose to his lips as he let himself relax into the bed. He supposed he had never imagined such a partnership either. Perhaps there were one or two debts he owed Farley Havelock after all. No, really better to thank Corvo. Yes. That was reasonable. And tomorrow, he would rework the current equations, and sketch out a painting of Piero…yes…the embrace of sleep closed over him as comfortably as Piero’s arms.


End file.
